daily life

family

We got to celebrate Easter over the weekend with both Scott’s side of the family and my side of the family which was FUN! We decided a few years ago that visiting two different families in one day was just too much. It worked out well this year because Scott’s sister Renee was hosting Easter on the Saturday and we were able to see my family on Sunday.

Saturday

Saturday morning was spent cleaning up the house and working on the boat before it was time to head down to Canyon Lake to visit with Scott’s family. Renee hosted my in-laws, my sister-in-law and her husband and their two little kids and Scott and me for an early Easter dinner. It was great to visit with everyone and see all the kiddos. Jude even brought out his bunnies for me to hold. He’s been raising them for about 1.5 years now and you could tell he was really proud of them. We’re up to 3 nephews and 2 twin nieces. Lots of love to go around in the Hamilton family.

Nephew Rudy, cutest baby EVER!

Sunday

Our neighbors invited us to Easter service at their church, The Church at Lake Travis. I’ve gone a couple of times but this was Scott’s first time trying it out. We’ve been looking for a church in the area so I was glad he was finally able to join me on Sunday. By the way, I’m really enjoying this church. Sunday kicked off a new series called Believe, which will cover hard questions about faith, God, scripture, etc. I’m really looking forward to it.

From there we drove out to my Aunt Kim’s house in Liberty Hill. She has a huge property with a couple of horses and 3 dogs. I loved getting to catch up with everyone and spend some quality time with family I don’t get to see as often as I’d like. We had a huge lunch followed by some snuggles with my newest nephew, Callen. Some adults went outside to hide the Easter eggs while all of the kids anxiously waited inside. It’s always so fun to watch the excitement unfold as the kids hunt for hidden Easter eggs.
After we got home from Aunt Kim’s house, we had about 2 hours to spare before going over to our neighbors house for ribs. I got in a quickie 40 min workout while Scott finished working on the boat. We headed over to Chris and Maggies house around 6 and had a low key night, which was a perfect way to end our Easter weekend!

Last Friday we welcomed my brother and sister in law’s baby boy, Callen. After being notified by my brother at 3:30 am that they were in the hospital, all I could think about for the rest of the day was that baby being born! I guess you could say I was little distracted at work. After work I went straight to the hospital to await his arrival. He ended up making his grand entrance at 6:45 pm Friday night. Both my mom and dad were there with their significant others, along with my sister in law’s parents and both sides aunts and uncles. We were a lively bunch in the waiting room! Every time we’d hear the door open from the delivery area we’d perk up and look for my brother. At 7:25 pm, we finally saw the door open up and my brother walked out with a smile from ear to ear. He was one proud dad!
The grandparents went back first, then the aunts(me!!) and uncles, then the great aunts and uncles. We were supposed to take turns but when it was all said and done, we had somehow all made our way to the delivery room together. Oh there were tears, lots of them. Callen was the most precious thing. Seeing the parents beaming with pride was icing on the cake.
The next day we were able to visit them in their new postpartum room and brought them lunch from Taco Deli. After eating cafeteria food, they scarfed down their lunch and were very gracious of our delivery. Meanwhile, I got tons of cuddles from Callen. There is nothing sweeter than holding your nephew for the first time. He is precious!

A lot has happened since my last post and our trip to Iowa. I’ve been wanting to devote a couple of posts to everything that’s been going on, but I can’t seem to find the time. So to kick off the New Year, I’ll play catch-up and share a few fun things that we did over the last few months of 2016! We did a lot, which means a lot of photos…You’ve been warned!

Girls trip to New Orleans

Two weeks after we got back from Iowa, I was off for a long weekend in New Orleans for a bachelorette party. I’ve been to New Orleans for a girls trip once before, so I knew how much fun it would be. I loved exploring the city with the bride and her girlfriends. The bride and I are becoming fast friends and I felt like I was able to get some good quality time with her on this trip, which was a major plus! From eating yummy creole food, to dancing the night away, to beignets, to ghost tours. We had a great time celebrating the bride to be!

My first trip to Disney World!!!

Scott was signed up for a conference at the end of August through Labor Day weekend in Orlando Florida. We’ve talked about taking our nephew to Disney World a couple times and figured this would be the perfect opportunity, so we made a vacation out of it! Jude and I left for Disney on Friday September 2nd and met up with Scott on his last conference day. A trip to Disney honestly needs a whole post devoted to planning and all the details, but considering it’s taken this long to mention it, I’ll just share our itinerary with you. I did A LOT of research and surprising the trip went over seamlessly. Also, there are people that LIVE for planning Disney vacations and they will plan your trip for FREE. I definitely utilized that resource. You can not go to Disney without a plan. Anyways, we ended up spending 3 days at Disney, hitting Epcot, Hollywood Studies, and the Magic Kingdom, and then headed to Universal for our last day (day after Labor Day–A very slow day for park goers!) We ended up riding *almost* every ride at both parks, Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios. Of course we had to check out the new side of Harry Potter World and yes, it was AMAZING! Our 8 year old nephew was a champ. It was so fun watching the magic unfold right in front of his eyes.

Bruce and Cristina got married!

Such a fun wedding!!! The ceremony was held at St. Mary’s Cathedral on East 10th. It was gorgeous!!! We then headed over to the Omni for one hell of a reception. Good times with good friends!

Attended my cousin, Michael and Allyson’s wedding

They got married on October 9th at The Addison Grove. The ceremony was outside under the gorgeous oak grove. My sister in law and I were both asked to be a part of the ceremony and read two different readings. It was sweet of them to include me in the ceremony!

Our first Wurstfest!

Sausage and beer, what more is there to say?

Hosted our first Friendsgiving!

We hosted a couple of our friends on the Sunday after Thanksgiving for Friendsgiving. I loved having our besties over for a mini Thanksgiving. Each couple brought a traditional dish to share and we provided fried turkey. It was yummy! I can never get enough traditional Thanksgiving food. It’s my favorite holiday.
Of course we celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas with our families. It was a really low key Christmas for us. We opted out of buying gifts for each other and bought ourselves a new king size mattress and a new bed. We also hosted pajama New Years Eve party with 4 of our friends for low key celebration. It was the perfect (and safe) way to ring in the New Year.

I know this post is long overdo, but I felt that SO many notable things had happened this past fall/winter that I didn’t want to miss posting! My favorite posts to write (and look back on) are recaps of daily life. I’d really like to get back to posting more consistently. Maybe the new year will be a good starting point? Cheers!